Will Putin dare to visit Trump in Hungary and what it means for Ukraine
Two and a half hours of meetings, two of them behind closed doors – with and without plates. Compliments from Donald Trump and attempts by the Ukrainian side to satisfy all the whims of the White House host.
All this was to achieve a step that, just a year ago, Ukraine faltly ruled out, and even talk of which would have sparked outrage and public resistance in Kyiv.
Read more about the negotiations in the article by Sergiy Sydorenko, European Pravda’s editor: Tomahawk blackmail: the main takeaways from the Zelenskyy–Trump meeting and its results.
So, the current tactical goal jointly pursued by the leaders of Ukraine and the United States is to force Putin to enter negotiations. The immediate tactical step expected from the Kremlin ruler is his meeting with the US president. The strategic objective of this meeting is to compel Putin to accept an unconditional ceasefire with a frozen front line.
A year ago, things were quite the opposite: it was the Kremlin seeking a meeting with the US leader, while Ukraine opposed it, reminding the world of the inadmissibility of talks "about Ukraine without Ukraine." The Ukrainian authorities also faltly and publicly ruled out a "frozen" war without preconditions. Yet within a year, the situation has changed dramatically – on the battlefield, within Ukraine itself, and above all, in international politics.
Will Putin travel to Budapest to meet Trump? There is no certainty, though the chances of talks starting are higher than ever before.
One factor contributing to that is the "threat" of supplying Tomahawk missiles to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The demonstratively public US–Ukraine negotiations over Tomahawks have become quite an effective tool of pressure on Moscow.
And if the meeting in Budapest does take place, will it yield any results? Especially given that the talks in Alaska, held in a narrow circle, proved unsuccessful for the US leader.
Speaking to journalists before his meeting with Zelenskyy on Friday, Trump suggested that Putin is trying to buy time and that this is the only reason he continues the negotiations.
If Trump goes to Budapest with a more realistic understanding of the Russian leader’s motives, that can only be welcomed. It gives some hope that the talks may be more productive than the Alaska round.
Does holding a peace summit in Budapest contradict Ukraine’s interests? Not necessarily.
In fact, Ukraine could even benefit from Viktor Orbán’s involvement in the process if it eventually reaches the final stage.
It has often been said and this view is shared in Washington that if Putin can ultimately be forced into peace, one essential element of the "security guarantees" Ukraine must receive should be its EU membership. And that, in turn, means finding a way to overcome Hungary’s veto, which currently blocks this path.
If Orbán remains in power after Hungary’s 2026 parliamentary elections, Trump would be in a position to pressure the Hungarian prime minister to unblock Ukraine’s EU path.
If Orbán’s baseless obstruction became the main obstacle on Trump’s potential road to a Nobel Peace Prize, arguments would surely be found. And involving Orbán in the peace process could help make this outcome seem more natural.
Still, this remains a very hypothetical scenario, one concerning the future more than the present. Because the chances of the upcoming Budapest meeting being a breakthrough are frankly low. More likely, it will be a small step that may lead to further developments later on.